Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail Review (PS5) – This expansion has been a long time coming for fans, after the emotional wreck that was both Shadowbringers then followed by the two punch of Endwalker both incredible expansions of the hit MMO Final Fantasy XIV.
We, the warriors of light are finally taking a nice relaxing break with the expansion Dawntrail and the 7.x series or are we?
Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail Review (PS5) – A Very Good Start
A Final Fantasy XIV-Style Holiday
Because of how main scenario quest (MSQ) heavy these expansions are, I always find it pretty hard to write on the storyline for these games. The main focus, at least what we are told, is that after all the wars and fighting the main character has been on, it is now time for a nice holiday.
But this holiday is very short lived as we have been hired by a new character and the real star of the expansion Wuk Lamat. She is a female Hrothgar which is new to the game (also players can now use a fantasia to swap to this race/gender if they wish, the game added a side quest to get a free potion, normally costs real money).
She is running for Dawnservent, as her adoptive father is stepping down. You and several other scions who she has hired are now competing against the rest of her family to see who rules Tural after the father steps down.
Also for anyone who has played the previous MMO FFXI, you may notice the father is actually named after an enemy in that game, and this expansion has several callbacks to FFXI which as someone who played the game in the past really made me smile.
Of course, it’s a Final Fantasy game so it’s not always as it seems from the start and your supposed holiday goes into many different locations, one of them though highlights one issue with this expansion and that’s the voice acting. Some of it doesn’t feel as good as previous expansions, especially in the southern style town of Shaaloani.
Also not just the voice acting not being as good, I really feel the game doesn’t have enough voice acting with a lot of scenes just being text. I know quite a few people, including myself who will often skim through text if you just keep throwing it at me so the fact there are longer cutscenes but more text based ones isn’t really great. Overall the voice acting is superb, but at least in some scenes, it really should have been kicked up a notch.
Jobs
The game has reworked a lot of the previous jobs, and currently due to the amount of jobs in the game I haven’t had the time to play them all and we already know some of them are getting reworked for the next patch. But I did take my time to try out the new ranged magical job Pictomancer and the new physical melee job Viper.
Viper is a very fast paced class, that with controller can often look quite messy on the hot-bar. I will admit my first impressions with the job were not good at all, I was unable to work out how I would have my traditional hot-bar setup for this job. After some hands on, it stills feel very hectic, and I’m not exactly sure I’m it playing correctly. Despite that, the rough idea of just swapping between back and sides of the enemy based on your combo in a rotation feels nice.
The job is really designed for those who want more of an action based feel in this MMO with its several off global cooldowns (OGCD) that mix in with the global cooldown actions (GCD). Though there is a rework planned and some changes already announced, so this review might be outdated before it even goes live.
Viper shares gear with Ninja, but while Ninja can use some striking gear below level 50, Viper does not have this ability. After reaching level 100, the job really doesn’t feel good at low level. This highlights a big issue with how the game overall does sync based content when you are doing roulettes.
Now for Pictomancer, the casting job of the expansion. I played through the MSQ as Pictomancer, because it was the job I was hyped for. The button layout was simple, and can basically do the same hot-bar as I do most other jobs and most actions will combo into other actions especially your basic spells that just rotate with the single button.
My only issue with Pictomancer hot bar is the hammer ability, which you draw with the canvas, then make a stamp and finally hit the enemyx3. The button is 3 separate buttons and I feel like this could have easily been combined into 2 and feels like button bloat just to make the job have more actions. At time of writing, Pictomancer is also doing some really insane damage but this could either be nerfed or balanced with future updates.
A Lot of other jobs have been tweaked or reworked with this expansion too, with some getting bigger overhauls such as Astrologian and Dragoon. I have also heard complaints with Black Mage changes too, though some of these things will be tweaked with future patches, some of them coming before the savage raid drops in a month.
So far outside the new jobs, I have only really touched White Mage as it was my previous job before Dawntrail and so far it feels roughly the same as it did before.
It seems crafting has added several new skills. I did get one craft to 100 during my review and for levelling I used collectibles which gave really good exp. But like previous expansions you have the job/role quests to help level also this includes your main jobs and also your gathering/crafting jobs. Levelling, crafting and gathering have many different options so if you want to rush you can, but can also take your time with daily hand-ins.
There is a new trait with the gathering jobs that is called Revisit, this skill is incredible when it happens. It is an RNG chance that the node you are gathering from can reset and your GP (Gathering points, used for skills) will reset.
This is very good when farming not just for items to level your crafter but also just for making money on raw materials.
Locations
The first city you arrive in Tuliyollal, is probably one of the best cities they have ever made in this game. From the variety of the different buildings to just the sheer scale of everything. The city itself doesn’t seem much bigger then previous expansions but the amount of buildings and unique things around every corner make it feel a much bigger scale.
But even then with the amount of buildings, it also feels the most spacious. It is just incredibly well designed. Some areas feel like they lack NPCs, but in other spots it can be adorable during my travels. I found some children playing around at an old wooden playground while a Mamool Ja is lifting its child up in the air to make it feel like it’s flying. The city feels alive and lived in, it’s an amazing achievement.
The areas you explore throughout this expansion feel so much more vast than previous releases. I don’t know if the zones are bigger but they feel more alive with more little towns or forests, then ever before. With the new lighting and foliage the whole thing is just incredible. I’m not normally the person to keep exploring zones after finishing the main story of each location, but this time I did want to explore and see everything.
As always you have several zones to explore in this expansion, 6 in total. We have technically seen most of them except as always the last zone was hidden for story reasons.
I do wish a couple of the locations had more Aetherytes, as they can take forever to get around both on foot and when you have unlocked flight later on. But they aren’t as bad as some of the older zones which were a real pain to just get around.
Also Solution 9, which is the 2nd city, I don’t want to get into too much detail for spoiler reasons, but I felt that it needs a few more NPCs as it doesn’t really feel as alive as even Tuliyollal does.
Dungeons And Trials
With the launch of each new expansion, you gain access to several new dungeons, this expansion as per usual has 6 main story dungeons running from 91 all the way to 100. I did feel like it took some time to reach the first dungeon in this expansion but I could be wrong as technically it’s the same level as always. There are also 3 trials, with one kept secret till the end as it’s a spoiler.
The first 2 trials have an extreme version which you can unlock at level 100, though I haven’t had the chance to try the extremes before this review, I will admit I did have fun with the normal versions!
When Yoshi P had mentioned that this expansion would up the challenge when it comes to dungeons he wasn’t wrong, the bosses seem a lot more punishing than previous expansions and trash mobs do a lot more damage to tanks.
Some of the dungeons you unlock later on even feel like they have mini raid style mechanics, especially the post story dungeons. I think I have had far more fun with this expansion dungeon content since Stormblood and can’t wait to see what else gets added in the future patches.
The raid will drop a week from when this review goes live, and though I can’t comment on it here, if it’s anything like the trials and dungeons of this expansion it is going to be a pretty amazing series of fights. We do know the raid will be based on a tournament style setting,which we have done before with the Omega raid series.
Overall
I will admit, I don’t have the best ear when it comes to reviewing music in games, but as always the team behind FFXIV music has pumped out some incredible numbers. I love to chill out in the new starting city because the music is so good. Each area and dungeon has such a perfect fitting music for the area that I had to turn off mount music for the first time in forever because it felt like it ruined the experience.
At the end of the day, it’s an expansion to Final Fantasy XIV and no matter what we go in expecting a good MSQ, some dungeons, some new locations and this expansion brought all of this in spades.
Now the fact I say it like this might frustrate a few veteran players, because currently there really isn’t anything new, just new old stuff. And I know the story isn’t for everyone, especially after the epic that was Endwalker and Shadowbringers, but it is the start of a new saga and frankly a bit of a break that we needed.
I wasn’t a huge fan of Stormblood due to the split in the two storylines, but this expansion has taken everything good about Stormblood MSQ and improved upon it.
Who knows if this is Stormblood 2.0 the patch cycle is going to be crazy good and maybe the next expansion will be Shadowbringers 2.0. A very good start to what could be an incredible journey and can’t wait to see where we go next.
Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail is now available on PS5 and PS4.
Review code generously provided by publisher.